Mark Williams, a snow hydrologist at the University of Colorado, has been studying the effects of climate change on future snowpack.

His forecasts showed that snowlines — elevations below which snow won’t develop — will move up more than 2,400 feet from the base of Aspen Mountain. His team has also predicted that if carbon emissions stay the same, average temperatures will climb by nearly 4 degrees Fahrenheit at Aspen by 2030 and 8.6 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100.

“We knew that our work showed that snowmelt is going to start earlier, and that we’re going to start to lose some of that late season snow,” Williams said. “But it didn’t look like it was going to really be a problem until 30 or 40 years in the future.”

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